The Artistic Misadventures—I’m a Sugar Sculptress

Easter is just around the corner, and recalling the hollowed out eggs dotted with frosting roses and quaint scenes inside, Panoramic Sugar Easter Eggs seemed like a fun and creative challenge.  It would involve trying two things for the first time ever.

1. Crafting with food.  

2. Following a recipe.

My expectations for the end results weren’t very high to begin with.  I found a simple recipe online and immediately saw I would need to make some replacements.  For one thing, I wouldn’t be making my own royal frosting, which required a full pound of powered sugar.  Since there would be no way in heck I’d be eating the finished product anyway, I decided to buy some pre-made cake frosting, which I like to think of as “sugar glue.”

Because the recipe called for one egg, I decided to try out a bag of “Neat Egg,” a vegan alternative made from chia seeds and garbanzo bean powder.  Following the instructions, I beat two tablespoons of water and one tablespoon of “Neat Egg” together to create a brownish lump of goo that was supposed to suffice as egg replacement, and plopped it into a mixing bowl with four cups of sugar.  At this point I deviated further from the recipe (“I don’t need food coloring, white is fine!”) and began mixing the fake egg blob into the sugar.

While mixing I began to notice a foul smell.  It was my “Neat Egg.”  I would have thought it had gone rancid except it was a new, sealed pouch with a 2017 expiration date.  It was one of those smells you can’t really ignore, and if you try to, it just gets worse.  Raiding my collection of essential oils I added a few drops of lemon, which masked the foul smell enough to continue.

Something still didn’t seem right …  my mixture was supposed to feel like moist sand, but would hold shape if squeezed into a ball.  It was then I realized I forgot to add ¾  cup of powered sugar.  Luckily, I found some organic powered sugar in the pantry. 

Organic sugar hasn’t been refined until it looks as pristine and sparkly as fresh snow, so the combination of the “Neat Egg” and organic powered sugar had turned my mixture a light grayish-tan.  Food coloring was needed after all …  but the only food coloring I had was organic food dye made from plants which made my Christmas cookies a few months back turn an abysmal grayish pink and blue.

Deciding to try my luck anyway, I let a few globular drops slither out of what I thought was the blue bottle, but as I mixed, my sugar turned a pinkish color.

The mixture was feeling more like damp sand, though I was skeptical because the egg shape collapsed at the slightest touch, I wasn’t so sure how baking the eggs would help them hold their shape. But once removed from the oven they were solid on the outside and scoopy on the inside!

Using a X-acto knife I began to hollow out the inside of the eggs, piercing the ¼ inch or so that is hardened on the outside, and scooped out the remaining wet sand … I mean sugar, leaving a ½ inch thick wall, and made a window for viewing the inside of the egg.  Using frosting as glue I adhered both sides of the egg together.

Now it was time for the fun part.   I had made a few batches of eggs, and during the time the shells were baking (20 minutes at 200°), I had plenty of time to ponder the stories I would tell inside each egg.

Laying a background of frosting in each egg I created a scene of a miniature unicorn and a pegasus flying in a purple, pink and yellow frosting sky, a deer standing in a frosting meadow full of miniature trees, and because I can’t resist the macabre — a graveyard scene with miniature headstones and a skeletal hand rising out of the purple frosting ground. 

At the end of the afternoon I had three Panoramic Sugar Eggs to add a touch of color for Easter this year … all in the name of adventure.

Clair Anna Rose will try anything twice — if it’s a craft. 

This article first appeared in the March 2016 issue of The Noise. 

The Artistic Misadventures — Stage Plight

Sometimes, I admit, I am impulsive.  One day, whilst waiting in line to procure my Hot Chocolate Charger at my favorite coffee house, I decided to glimpse the community calendar to see if there was anything going on. 

Auditions for, You Can’t Take It With You.

Oh no! Thought I, that’s tonight!  

It was a few weeks ago when I received an email from a close friend relaying the information to me, in hopes that perhaps I would re-kindle my love affair with the theatre. 

I got my coffee, and hightailed it back to the community playhouse whereupon walking into the room a kind lady asked me if I was here for the auditions and invited me to come sit in one of the seats in the theater, while they told us a little bit about the play.

Did I mention I had no clue what I was auditioning for? After being handed a piece of paper with a short monologue, I tried to find a place in the lobby to “rehearse.” Finding myself too shy to speak out loud though, I settled for just reading the thing over and over in my head, and mouthing the words as I faced the wall.

Being ushered onto the stage for my reading however, I suddenly remembered that I was horrible at auditions.

So in my best Bette Davis voice (because when I think acting I think Bette Davis) I recited my monologue, pretending that I really was the character whose name I don’t remember, and I was addressing my family, prepping them to meet my new man.

After doing what I thought was a slightly better than mediocre audition and hoping that my charming social awkwardness would carry me through to the next tier, the directors asked me if I would read it again, only this time, “Try to act a little more natural.”

 “Oh, sure!” I say. And begin to read again, but as I read, I realize I’m doing it exactly like I did it the first time and no matter how much I try to act natural, I act less natural and I am hit with the startling realization, Oh my god! I really can’t act. This is why I wasn’t Alice! This is why I wasn’t Medea, Dorothy, or Jo in Little Women. This is why I’m always in the chorus.  Oh my god!

“Thank you, Clair,” the director says, “Can you stay to read with someone else?”

What? You want me to read again? “Oh, of course!” Dang.

By now I am nervous and shaky and trying to figure out, How did I ever use to do this before? How was I so confident and oblivious to my lack of acting skills?

I am partnered up with a fellow and we rehearse in the hall. He’s playing my character’s boyfriend and he’s so good I’m blushing because I feel like he’s hitting on me and he keeps touching my arm and I want to tell him I think he’s nice, but this is all going too fast, and then I remember he’s acting.

We read and I feel embarrassed that someone is listening in on this very private conversation and I’m glad when it’s over.

And then they ask me to read again.

At the end of the night they have us line up from short to tall, and call different combinations of people forward to see how familial we can appear.

We are dismissed for the evening, and told that callbacks are tomorrow, “And if you don’t get called back that doesn’t mean you aren’t in.”

Much to my surprise after such a flawless audition, I don’t make the play.

But it was worth it … all in the name of Adventure. 

The Artistic Misadventures of Ms. Rose: Make Your Own Pinhole Camera

I have a tendency to get one-mindedly obsessed about craft projects until I do them.  That’s how I got to feeling about making my own pinhole camera.  I could make my own camera?  Me? Out of a juice box?  Out of a matchbox? 

Well, this sounds complicated.  Sign me up!

I was so driven by desire to figure out how the heck I could place a roll of film inside a matchbox and get pictures.  Without batteries! I completely abandoned all other things I was supposed to be doing and I went straight home and watched video after video on Youtube about constructing my own pinhole camera.

I then took myself shopping, and I was quite surprised most places don’t actually sell film anymore.

I did find film at Walgreens, and I decided on black and white film which has always been so much more exciting and mysterious than regular film.  I bought three rolls.  I was going to take lots of pictures with my new pinhole camera.

At home I sat down at the kitchen table.  (By now, if you’ve joined me on a misadventure before, you may have noticed my kitchen table is never used for eating meals, but for artistic experiments.)  I spread out in front of me black electrician’s tape, empty rolls of film, new rolls of film, a mini matchbox, an X-acto knife and the directions I needed.  There were a few other supplies called for, but I decided not to use them because it seemed too tedious.  (This is why I usually don’t succeed at recipes — I always decide to leave out things when I don’t think they’re necessary (like onions) or if I don’t want to go to the store.)

I meticulously followed the directions (unless I couldn’t figure out why I should do something the way they suggested, like a tin foil pinhole instead of a cardboard one or Why can’t I push the needle through the cardboard all the way to the eye?  Bigger is better, right? I’ll use an embroidery needle, it’s thicker!)

I colored the inside of the matchbox black.  I taped all the parts together.  I thoroughly impressed myself with my ability to tape together an old piece of film sticking out of an old canister to a new one.  I covered the entire outside of my camera with black tape.

It even looked like a camera.

I decided to go outside to take pictures with my new masterpiece of a pinhole camera.

I took a picture of prayer flags faded by weather hanging in the Chinese elms and waving in the wind, the black cat frolicking in the garden, and my big dog looking at me with his endearingly dopey expression.  I took a photograph of my harmonium.  I tried to do something artistic: take a photo of myself in different places throughout the exposure.  At this time in my photographic career I wasn’t even sure what “exposure” meant, but figured longer was better, right?

When the roll of film was used up, I then set about the task of developing the film.

Things have changed since the last time I developed a roll of film in 2004.  Now everyone sends film away.  I’m so used to digital camera instant-gratification — I wanted to see my pictures now!  Not wait a whole week.

When my pictures were finally ready I excitedly went home to put the disk in my computer to see what sort of ethereal masterpieces I had created.

For some reason most of the pictures looked like I tried to take a photograph of the sun.  Some had slightly identifiable shapes in them.  One vaguely looked like a dog.

After this trial and error pinhole camera experiment, and after hours of puttering around, I have gathered an even simpler method of making your own pinhole camera for my most dedicated artistic misadventure-ers.

How to make a pinhole camera adaptor for your DSLR: 1. Remove the lens from your camera.  2. Tape a piece of tin foil over your camera where the lens goes.  3. Poke a teeny, tiny hole in the tin foil.  4. Take a bunch of digital pictures with your homemade pinhole adaptor until you figure out what the heck aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are, and how they work with a pinhole adaptor.

Of course, I do encourage you to make a pinhole camera using film (just follow your chosen directions!).  I too will be giving pinhole cameras another dabble …  all in the name of adventure!

An early version of this post appears on this blog, and this article appeared first in The Noise. 

The Artistic Misadventures: Mishap With Modge Podge

On a beautiful spring afternoon I came home from my poetry class feeling inspired.  I was in the middle of making an Alice in Wonderland collage and had been slowly and carefully cutting out old illustrations from various Alice in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass scenes, and thoughtfully organizing them in a colorful, busy paper world.  I finally figured out how I would like my scene arranged, complete with different layers popped into the foreground to create depth, but I hadn't figured out what to do for a background until I was driving home in my 1973 VW microbus "Bubbles."  I was struck with inspiration — The background should be playing cards, of course!

I raced home at breakneck speed (20MPH) and set up at the kitchen table with a pot of Modge Podge, a deck of cards, and all my little paper cut-outs of Alice in Wonderland characters.

In my creative whirlwind I hadn't bothered to change out of my day clothes (a flowing skirt and billowing blouse, of course!), but that didn't matter, because I almost never (almost always) make messes.  Why, if I can go a whole day without getting glue or paint in my hair or on my clothes I consider this a success.

At a leisurely pace I coated the background where I would soon be plastering cards down.  I was taking my time, because I so enjoy the sensation of creativity — I wanted to drag it out for as long as possible.

Alas, my spatial awareness must have been a bit off that day.  Many key indicators of the catastrophe soon to come were before my very eyes, but I was blithely ignoring them: the open jar of Modge Podge placed precariously at the edge of the table, the smooth unblemished fabric of my skirt just tempting fate to spill something on it, and the wild movement of my elbows as I brushed glue on my canvas.

When my elbow connected with the jar of Modge Podge time suddenly slowed down.

“Oooooh Nooooo!” I exclaimed, but just like in the movies my words were slowed down and garbled.  It was as if the jar had a face, and kept fear-filled eye contact with me as it slowly descended to the ground flailing its little imaginary arms.  Upon impact the jar seemed to flinch as Modge Podge exploded into the air and for a moment hovered weightless before time clicked into real speed and the Modge Podge landed all over my clothes, my hair and the kitchen floor.

My plans for a leisurely afternoon of gluing stuff to stuff were interrupted by a new consideration — the race against time to use the Modge Podge before it dried on the floor, in my hair and on my clothes.

I knew what I had to do and I didn’t like it.  The Modge Podge on the floor needed to be on my canvas, and there was only one way to get it there.

I grabbed up the cards.

I knelt on the floor.

One by one I slathered each card by rubbing them around in the pile of Modge Podge, coating as many of them as quickly as possible and then quickly slapping them down onto the collage.

Forget about brushes!  I didn't have time for that! 

I lamented the stray strands of dog hair and specks of dirt working their way into the collage.  My hands were dirty now anyway, having rubbed them all over the floor to try to scoop as much Modge Podge as possible off the floor and back into the jar.

When I had utilized as much of the floor spill as possible I began to use cards to scrape the Modge Podge off my clothes and rang out my hair onto the collage.

What was going to be so carefully calculated and done with precision had been accomplished in under five minutes.

With the background settled and drying, I stood still for a moment catching my breath and taking in the mess around me — and the mess that was me.  I had to decide what clean-up took priority — I decided on my clothes.  I ran to the laundry room and threw my Modge Podge soaked clothes in the washer and crossed my fingers, then scurried back to the kitchen to see to the now-glossy tiles.  Finally I recruited a bottle of dish soap to work on washing the dry Modge Podge from my hair.

The end result, regardless of the road to completion, was exactly how I envisioned it.

This article first appeared in The Noise. 

What Dinosaurs Love!

Dinosaurs LOVE Deer...

And little girls...

And babies......

..... With ICE CREAM! 

After over indulging on sweets, Delilah and Daphne went on a carousel ride. 

Daphne lamented that her arms were to short to ever be an accomplished harpist. 

Delilah modeled her new specs. 

Daphne read Delilah an unfortunate fortune. 

And gave an inaccurate geography lesson. 

They went on another sweet binge. 

Things got weird. 

Daphne convinced Delilah to try some shrooms her cousin got from a man at a bus station in the Midwest. 

And things got weird. Again. 

Really weird. 

Daphne and Delilah are a random, weird creation by myself, Clair Anna Rose, and were made with weirdness and spontaneity at my downtown Flagstaff studio, Muse Miniatures!

All the Books I've Read. Ever. A summary.

I've read a lot of books. Hundreds. I'm not claiming that they were all of any literary value, because, who cares? It's a book. It's like a movie you read... or sometimes it's like a documentary you read. I like the heavy, meaningful stuff too, but 89% of the time I want to read a book that is either going to make me laugh embarrassingly loud, transport me somewhere else, and draw me so far in that I'm a little depressed when the book is over.

I've always been a reader, as soon as I could read, I was devouring books.

It was the summer when I was 15, however, that I started keeping track. My friend Melissa was volunteering at the public library, I never did anything on summer break, so one day I visited her. She gave me a poster for children to track their reading. It had spaces to read 20 books.

I've always been a lister too, so this appealed to me.

I took the poster home and tacked it to our pantry door.

I obsessively wrote down the title of each finished book. In a couple weeks the spaces were filled, but I continued my list in the blank spaces and on the back.

"You're still keeping track?" Melissa asked me a year later.

Yes, Melissa, if you're reading this. I'm still keeping track. 13 years later.

I read pretty fast. I learned how to speed read in middle school and that was one part of 8th Grade English I will never forget. It proved to be very helpful in college.

All The Books I've Read Ever. A summary.

2001

In 2001 I was a Freshman in High School. I never studied or did my homework or payed attention in class, so I had a lot of time for reading. I read pretty much all day, every day, unless I was figure skating or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I read 51 books that year, but keep in mind I didn't start keeping track until June 12, 2001.

Mostly I read Young Adult Fiction based off of the WB TV shows of the Time.

That Summer I read the entire Roswell series. Those were the only aliens I wasn't afraid of because they were hot.

I also read Buffy The Vampire Slayer Novels as often as I watched the show. A lot. Too much. I actually memorized one book/episode verbatim. I could act out the whole episode by myself. And I would. A lot.

I was a Buffy The Vampire Slayer quote machine. I don't know if I'll ever completely rid myself of all the facial and verbal expressions I learned from the show.

I read Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya because I had imagined that I would take Honors English. I changed my mind, but I kept the book. I loved that book. I read it in 2 days. (I also kept track for a time of how long it took me to read a book. Usually I read a book a day. Or every other day.)

I read a lot of of books by Lynn Andrews:

Medicine Woman
Star Woman
Crystal Woman

Then I re-read all the Tamora Pierce Books that I read in 8th grade because a new one came out.

That was another odd thing about teen-aged me.

I had a lot of rules. I made them up myself. One rule was that if a new book in a series came out, I had to re-read the entire series right before the new book came out so I would be fresh.

That's how I read the Harry Potter series 8 times. One was for good measure.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry was sad.

Besides that and The Princess Diaries, I read some un-notable Young Adult fiction and dozens of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Novels.

I also read my first Victoria Holt novel that year.

2002
Age 16
Total number of books read that year: 99

The entire Harry Potter series to date so far (Goblet of Fire)

Lots of Buffy books.

The Roswell series again.

A bunch of witchy new-age young adult fiction.

A Walk to Remember by Nicolas Sparks. (Hahahahaha.)

The Mists of Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The entire Fearless Series to date by Francine Pascal.

Required reading.

A bunch of Victoria Holt Books.

2003
Age 17
Total number of books that year: 81

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, White Oleander and a lot of Buffy, Fearless and other books I already read and some new ones.

Also, Beloved, by Toni Morrison.

2004
Age 18
Total number of books that year: 50

The Da Vinci Code,  Angels and Demons, Go Ask Alice, Tuck Everlasting and A BUNCH OF BOOKS I READ ALREADY, including the entire Fearless series again. What the hell, 18-year-old self? Did they stop printing new books that year?

I must have been following my must re-read series rule.

2005= 14 Books
2006= 22 Books
2007= 10 Books
2008= 31 Books
2009= 16 Books
2010= 11 Books
2011= 18 Books
2012= 31 Books
2013= 10 Books
2014= 9 books So far....

What have I been reading in the last 9 years?

Reading the Harry Potter series 3 more times.

Finally gave up on ever seeing and end to the Fearless FBI series and began to get embarrassed as a college student hanging round the young adult section.

Every book by Victoria Holt. Twice.

Every book under Victoria Holt's other pen names: Phillippa Carr and Jean Plaidy

Every book by Augusten Burroughs.

Every Book by Mary Stewart.

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. More than 5 times.

Brave New World.

Every book by Pam Houston. Cowboys are My Weakness  is really, really good.

I guess I did read The Alchemist. I didn't like it.

You must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oats. Oh. my. good. book.

Adverbs by Daniel Handler. I'm a total fan girl for this writer after that book.

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. So, so, so, so, so good. Don't judge me.

The Road. Meh.

All of Jane Austen's books.

Bossy Pants by Tina Fey.

The Hunger Games series and the Divergent series. Yes. And I loved it. All 6 days of reading them.

And that is all the books I read. Ever. That I kept track of. Plus a lot of new age self discovery books.

Solar Eclipse 2012

Sunday there was a pretty darn almost total solar eclipse near where I lived. Nobody told me until the morning of it. I suppose that's one of those things that I would know, if I watched the News, or wasn't playing hooky from face-space that day. But I was gluing stuff to stuff, so eat my toe jam, I didn't know, o.k?

Anyways, some people I hold dear to my heart didn't get to experience the Solar Eclipse to the extent that I did, and because I have feelings I know how that must have felt, pretty darn awful. I mean, this may be the only time this almost happens here in Flagstaff, and for my friends in Australia, California, Hawaii and wherever the hell else you guys are, I felt it my duty, yes, my duty, to show you what I saw.

I was standing outside noticing how green everything looked.

Now, this is a true story, so I would like to clarify, that though my hair is now a nice muck-colored shade of brown, in my imagination it's still flaming red. The honest thing about this picture is that I am this pale, and my glasses are blue with blue lenses and they are prescription, so when I wear them to yoga class and put them on during class, it's not because I need to feel cool, it's because I need to see what the teacher is showing us.

Anyways...

I was noticing how shadowy everything seemed...

In real life I also don't wear fuchsia lipstick (unless I'm 12.)

I decided I needed to know what time it was.

Then I realized I didn't remember what time the eclipse started.

But figured it either looked weird outside because it had started, or it looked weird because I was expecting it to happen, and thought things looked different.

I decided I needed goggles.

There were none.

I decided to try to look at the sun.

This is what I saw:

I've seen more exciting things in Amsterdam, that's for darn sure.

Across the parking lot I saw people looking at the sun as if they weren't blinded.

I galloped over to them.

"Are those special eclipse goggles?" I asked.

"Yes, would you like to see?" One said.

"Yes!" I squealed and held them up to my eyes.

But this is actually all it looked like:

Now you know. I hope this makes up for what you missed.